Insensitive
by Rabbit is Rich
Summary: Shiloh Nix had been warned what usually happened to the girls Jay 'dated'. Even so, resisting his advances proved too much for her to handle. Her next move? Figuring out just where to go from there.
1. The Vagueness in Your Eyes

_Author's note:_ I'm back with another LoD story! _Pretentious_ is still very much alive, but I just needed a small break from it as I wasn't feeling anything new for it at the moment. No worries, it'll see completion, too. I hope you all enjoy this as much as you have the other story. Please let me know what you think and be prepared... no one is written the same. :P

**Chapter One:  
**The Vagueness in Your Eyes

I pulled my shirt back on over my bra, covering up the skin that had been exposed just moments before. I hadn't felt shy while we were both in the moment, but now, with him gone, my nakedness took on a strange, dirty feeling. I had let go of every inhibition for whatever reason only a short while before, but at that moment, I felt safer wrapped up inside myself. I couldn't help the sick feeling creeping through my stomach when I considered the fact that I'd practically no urge to be there when he returned. I didn't want to feel his eyes avoiding mine, an even stranger sensation than that of his eyes on my body in the brief glances before we both scrambled for clothes.

It wasn't long, though, before I found myself twitching nervously, his wiry frame in the doorway clad in only a towel around his waist. I'd expected more than the wry half smile he offered me before sighing.

"I'm going to take a shower," he mumbled, motioning to the bathroom. "I guess you might not be here when I get back, so… I'll see you?"

I merely nodded. I wasn't familiar with his program, though I'd heard about it. I didn't know how to accept what seemed like polite rejection from someone I'd just had sex with. I knew he had a reputation, but we'd been doing the dance of dating for a little over two weeks. That might seem like a short time to have already been in bed with him, but when Jay Adams asked for something from a girl, it rarely was shot down. He had a certain sexual nature, a charm that just emitted itself from him. That was no classy excuse for what we did, but it was my only one.

He didn't offer any apology for the casual way he leaned on the doorframe, one hip jutting out, arms crossed, but only watched me gather my jacket and head for the door with my head down. I couldn't much bear to look at him directly.

I went home that night and took a long shower, sitting down against the hard, cold surface of the bathtub. I did this rather than eat dinner with my mother and sister, raising only minor eyebrows and saying I felt sick. I just needed time to process everything that had happened that night. There wasn't much to suspect, really. My mother was only temporarily in, anyways. It wasn't as though her energies were devoted much to motherly intentions and such.

I felt ignorant, more than dirty, after sitting on my bed awhile. The whole situation was one that could have been avoided completely, if only I'd listened a little to people who were, in hindsight, only being helpful. I'd been warned severely by not only girls, but Jay's own best friends, not to get involved with him romantically.

_"Jayboy… well, he's a heartbreaker. Don't get your heart broken, alright, Chica?"_ Tony had warned me the first time I'd shown any interest in him, when I'd first met the whole crew. Maybe I should've taken him more seriously.

Even having been given the advice I was given, I couldn't help myself. Finally, after three years of living on the same block as Jay, he noticed me. It was that cliché scene where he took this sudden interest in me and I was entranced by it. I'd watched him go through so many girls, and for some reason, I thought maybe I'd last. I had, after all, pined for him for quite some time. I let my illogical emotions get the better of me, and it had cost me a lot. I knew that, most likely, I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg. I was sure he'd tell his friends, who were also my friends, what we did.

I pulled my bathrobe tighter around myself and tried my hardest to stop thinking for the night. No good would come of over thinking the whole ordeal. My only real option was to act as naturally around Jay and our mutual friends as possible. I prayed that he'd have the decency to keep it relatively quiet. Whether I was to be so fortunate or not faded from my mind as I fell asleep.

---

I shoved my hands in my pockets as the bell on the door rang with my entering the shop. Skip and Sid stood, like clockwork, at the front. Sid waved and Skip nodded in my general direction before they went back to discussing whatever it was they were before I walked in. I headed out to the back of the store, where the guys were undoubtedly hanging around. I took a seat by the door, hoping to blend into the background. I'd only come to avoid the opportunity for mass storytelling and to keep up a good appearance.

I nodded and smiled in greeting when one of the guys rolled past me. I hoped not to have to say much and not to see Jay. I knew it was inevitable, but I tried to envision a perfect world where it wouldn't happen. I pretended to be content with my warm spot on the concrete, in the sun that was fading overhead. I hadn't managed to show up until somewhere around sunset. I watched the guys skate for a good two hours before anyone initiated any real conversation.

"Hey," Stacy said, skating over then stepping off his board. He stood directly in the sunlight, filtering out an odd spray of light around his figure. "Are you alright? You haven't said two words all day…"

I squinted and shaded my eyes with my hand to look at him. "I'm okay," I said, voice feeling hoarse from disuse. He didn't seem entirely convinced, throwing me a raised eyebrow and crossing his arms.

"Something you need to talk about?" He pried, trying to persuade me into talking. I knew that what I had to say had to be kept as silent as humanly possible if I was to survive it. I was having enough trouble moving past it myself without anyone else meddling in it, even with good intentions that I knew most would not have. I was well aware of the reputation I'd gain from it if I wasn't careful. I answered Stacy with a firm head shake.

"Come on, I'll give you a lift home. Maybe get something to eat, or something, okay?" I knew that, though he seemed to be attempting to be polite and gentlemanly to me, this was a non-intrusive tactic to coax me into spilling my problems to him. I shrugged and stood up, wrapping my arms around my middle.

"I don't know, Stace. I'm not feeling the greatest, right now," I said, feigning a bit of a weakened expression. He rolled his eyes, still not buying it. Along with being best friends with a person comes a kind of bond where they can tell you're putting on a brave face when you shouldn't be. This was one time I knew I couldn't be so easily comforted by him.

"Just get in the car, okay?" He said, pulling me to my feet with an outstretched hand. I hesitated, but was reluctantly persuaded. We both said goodbye to the other guys, who didn't respond much. Through the window of the shop, I could see Jay standing inside, talking with someone. My heart was in my throat. If I'd needed any more reason to go with Stacy, that had to be by far the most convincing.

I sat in his car, now flooded with the awkward silence that the thick barrier of metal blocking out the outside sounds creates. I fidgeted with my shirt end, nervously.

"What's wrong, 'Lo?" He asked, abbreviating 'Shiloh' in his usual way. He was the only one who ever called me that. There were truly no exceptions to that rule, as other people referred to me as Nix, a reference to my middle name, Nixon.

"I don't want to have this conversation, please," I warned, a pleading tone in my voice.

"You're usually the life of the party," he said maneuvering smoothly into a turn. "I know something's got to be wrong for you to sit for hours." His voice had the same old tone to it that made me well aware that he was insistent upon finding out, whether I wanted him to know or not.

"If I tell you something, you've got to promise not to think badly of me," I prefaced my story, unsure of why I was telling him it at all. His face grew somewhat disgusted and offended.

"I couldn't think badly of you, Shiloh. You're one of my best friends," he scoffed, seemingly in disbelief that I'd accuse him of such a thing. I knew that what he had in mind for my big revelation was probably less severe than what'd really happened, though, so I had myself prepared for backlash he said wasn't coming.

"Jay and I…" I began a sentence I felt physically incapable of finishing. His stunned expression let on that perhaps he knew where I was leading with the half statement.

"You didn't… you didn't fool around with him, Lo. Please say you didn't," he said, brining the car to a stop by the side of the road. I cringed at the vagueness of what he'd thrown out there. I wasn't sure how to pose the answer that, no, I hadn't, in fact, fooled around with Jay, that it'd been much more.

"Not exactly, no," I said, looking at him, hoping he'd catch on without my having to actually articulate the events that took place. He seemed relieved for a brief moment.

"Thank God. I've told you before how Jay is," he said, still looking at me intently. He wasn't understanding my underlying message that more had transpired between us than a simple grope session.

"Stacy," I began, pausing to collect the words all into one sentence, "I slept with him."

He didn't speak for a gut wrenching minute or two, only stared at me in disbelief and perhaps a bit of horror. I wanted a reaction from him, anything that I could tangibly have to know what was going to be said about the ordeal. He didn't give me anything to feed off of until finally he spoke.

"Shiloh… how could you do that?"

It wasn't the understanding answer I'd hoped for, to be honest. I expected that he'd know, perhaps, how Jay had handled the whole situation and the way I was feeling, and that he'd have some terrific words to heal it all.

"So now, what? You think I'm a slut, right? Well, fuck you, Stacy… I' liked him for so long…" I repressed the tears that boiled in my eyes, though they worked their way to the surface with much effort. "I didn't think I was going to get practically thrown away…"

He seemed to consider the way I was feeling and the pitiful state I was in, because his face softened a little. He offered me as warm a hug as you can give a person sitting in the passenger seat over the island of the car.

"I don't know what to say," he admittedly, sadly.

I didn't know what I even wanted to hear.


	2. Casual Goodbyes

**Thank you all for being so kind and patient. I have been so sick and so caught up with school, and I'm dreadfully sorry. I'll do better! xo**

**Chapter two**:  
Casual Goodbyes

Whatever it was that I wanted to hear from Stacey, his distant and casual gaze was far worse than anything he could've said. He just drove, a prolonged silence settling awkwardly between the two of us. I felt horrible and sick at my stomach, aching with the knowledge that he was disappointed in me.

"I just can't believe that you'd…" he let the sentence remain unfinished, shaking his head. He didn't seem disapproving as much as he did concerned.

"I told you," I said, my tone beginning to rise. "I didn't think it'd be like this…"

"Hasn't everyone told you? Haven't you seen for yourself? It's always like this. Every time." He sounded somewhat parental when he said this, chiding me for not heeding his warnings. I knew that Stacy was a levelheaded guy, but I'd wanted so much to believe in what I was getting into.

"You're not helping," I mumbled, rolling down the window of his car and letting a hand hang out the window. He sighed.

"You never listen, Shiloh. Never," he said, gently. I could tell that he felt bad for me, for what I was sure he knew I was going through. I knew that what he was saying was true; I did, in fact, disregard most people's advice most of the time.

It wasn't like me to have acted so rashly. Even though I didn't pay attention to the supposed words of wisdom people were always so eager to hand out, I made my own rational decisions the majority of the time. It had been a complete sensory overload when I was alone with Jay, in his room. Every perceptive ability I had was occupied by something; the smell of the room mixed with his gentle scent of sandalwood, the darkness, the warmth, the taste of his skin. It'd been all too much of a force against the logic I usually conjured up.

"I try to," I said, simply. It was all of the answer I really had to give him. There wasn't anything to say that hadn't been said already, and I didn't feel like repeating myself.

"So am I to assume I don't know any of this?" He asked, exhaling deeply. My chin dropped in shame, just a little.

"It'd be for the best," I said, quietly.

"So everyone is supposed to pretend it never happened?" He slowed the car down, looking over at me. "He's going to tell his side of the story, Lo."

I knew that he was right; Jay would inevitably share his version of the events with people and I knew it would get around. His version of the story would be the one I'd have to grin and bear.

We pulled up to my house, one light on in the upper corner in my sister's room. I knew she was still up, waiting to see where I'd been and what I was up to. I sighed and paused, waiting for something to be said, putting off getting out of the car.

"If that's what you want me to do," he said, eyes intently fixed outside the window. "I'll keep my mouth shut."

"Thank you, Stace," I said, giving him a light hug before walking away.

---

"Sit down," She repeated to me three times, each more persistent than the last, with a grin that could probably melt souls. In all actuality, My very swollen older sister, Melissa, just wanted me to sit down. I suppose that there was not much I could do with her stomach pressing against my back as she waddled after me besides sit down. I obliged with my sweetest smirk.

"Sorry, Mel, I can't keep my hands off these little sandwiches!" I scrunched up my face in a wickedly adorable way. She huffed, but quickly recomposed herself into the well mannered Country Clubber she pretended to be.

"Anyways," she began, shooting me a look. "I just want to thank you all so much for being here, not just for me, but for the baby."

Beside her stood a tall man with dark hair and glasses, a bit older and less upfront than Melissa. He was her husband of one year. He was obviously bewildered at the whole aspect of becoming a father. He took her hand, which she then moved over her belly, fondly patting it and forcing him to do the same.

"Michael and I decided we'd wait until this very special day to announce if we've got a widdle boy or a widdle gurwl," she baby talked, coochie-cooing at us all. "In fact, we're coming to that right now. We're excited to announce to you all that our new arrival is a…" She paused here for dramatic tension, something she prided herself on.

"A boy! We're having a boy!"

There was an uproar of giddiness from the peanut gallery. I just feigned a strongly posed smile. They all attempted to rub her stomach in a circular motion, as if the fact that the living thing inside her had a gender to it finally validated it's citizenship. Poor kid.

"I just…" Melissa wiped away a tear that no one else could see forming in her eye, myself included. "I never knew I could love so much before I loved this tiny person growing inside me. Just imagine… this little person I've never even met."

There was another uproar of "Aw's" from the gathering.

"Thank you, but please," she kindly hushed the room. "I'd like to dedicate this to my mother, the one who loved me so before I was welcomed to the world. I'd only hope to do a job half as good, Mother."

This charade of mock adorability went on longer than I could stomach. I eventually retired to my room, where I slept through most of the night before receiving a phone call. I cringed at hearing the familiar voice, again, on the other end.

"Hey," Stacy said in response to my greeting. "I was calling to make sure you were alright and at home."

"Where else would I be?" I asked, skeptically.

"Uh… no where." There was a short time of silence before he muttered, "Jay is having a party. I didn't want you to spaz out and go."

I growled in indignity. I wasn't stupid enough to go.

"I don't need you to always be checking up on me, you know that, right?" I spat, angrily. He paused for a moment before laughing lightly.

"Yeah, you do."


End file.
